Trusses used in building constructions largely comprise roof trusses and floor trusses. To achieve a variety of building frame designs truss-to-truss connections can be perpendicular and also skewed. In roof trusses a skewed truss is used to form a ‘hip’ roof and the roof trusses are known as hip trusses. The trusses in a ‘hip’ roof are designed such that, at a junction of two trusses, there is a third truss which intersects the junction at an angle. Generally, the junction between adjacent beams in a hip roof is a perpendicular junction between the two adjacent beams. Such trusses are found not only in hip roof trusses, but could also apply to floor trusses supporting a skewed floor truss or any other trusses fixed at an angle to a junction, and are referred to herein as a ‘skewed truss’. Such connections are therefore made at a junction of two beams, where a third beam intersects the junction at an angle.
There are standard techniques for mounting a skewed truss or beam in-between a perpendicular truss and a girder truss. One technique is to mount both the skewed truss and the perpendicular truss using a single bracket. When using a single bracket the weight of the skewed truss and the perpendicular truss are supported by the bracket, which is fixed to the girder truss. The skewed truss is secured in position on the bracket and between the girder truss and perpendicular truss by a tie that is nailed to the skewed truss. The disadvantage of this method is that the bracket is not necessarily optimised for the purpose of supporting a skewed truss, resulting in the securing method being unstable and the bracket being oversized. Furthermore, heavy loads from skewed trusses can lead to deflection of brackets.
There also exist fixed angle brackets for mounting to a girder truss that allow both a perpendicular and a skewed truss to be mounted. However, each bracket is restricted to a single angle at which the skewed truss can be mounted, and have complex geometry to accommodate mounting multiple trusses.
Another technique for mounting a skewed truss or beam is to first mount the perpendicular truss to the girder truss with a first bracket, and then use a supplementary bracket, known as a hanger bracket, to mount the skewed truss. The supplementary bracket relies on the perpendicular truss connection to already be made, at least in part, by the first bracket. The supplementary hanger bracket is then mounted to the already constructed perpendicular connection, and the skewed truss, supported on the hanger bracket, is secured thereto from underneath through one or more holes in the bottom of the hanger bracket. This technique is effective in securing the hip truss to the hanger bracket; however, the supplementary bracket has been known to deflect under loads, resulting in shifting of the skewed truss. Another disadvantage of the supplementary bracket method is that the head of the fixing screw can interfere with the plasterboard ceiling, which is mounted directly onto the underside of the truss or beam.
The current methods and products for attaching a skewed beam, while effective, could be improved.